Feed The Fire: take a week out, stay at a country house in rural Devon and get creative

Devon country house to host a new songwriting retreat hosted by two successful backroom writers, Paul Statham and Emily Phillips

Feed The Fire is a new songwriting retreat, taking place in a large country house in rural Devon on 16-23 September, that is hosted and facilitated by two very successful behind-the-scenes songwriters, Paul Statham and Emily Phillips.

Statham – a songwriting tutor at Leeds College Of Music – has co-written million sellers for Dido and Kylie, and worked with artists as varied as Simple Minds, The Saturdays, Matt Cardle and Peter Murphy, while topliner Phillips (who we interviewed in the Spring 2015 edition of Songwriting Magazine) has three Top 10 hits to her name, and has written with the likes of Florence & The Machine, Lemar, Rizzle Kicks and John Newman.

Attendees will work in groups of three, with a different assignment each day. These include such exercises as writing in the style of the west coast singer-songwriters of the 1970s, or writing an ‘extra’ track for a classic 90s album such as Back To Black or American Idiot.

“I’m really looking forward to the course,” says Phillips. “Whatever stage your songwriting is at, getting a week away from it all in a beautiful place is the perfect way to take your craft up a gear – especially if you’ve got to write and perform a song a day. There’s nothing like a bit of pressure to get the juices going.”

The course costs £650 if you’re happy to camp in the grounds, £900 for a shared room or £1,200 for a private suite. And if you’re quick, there are five ‘early bird’ tickets with 25% discount if you book by 31 May 2017. For more information, see feedthefire.me